


Tequila and Truths

by MuddlingAlong



Category: The Good Wife (TV)
Genre: Angst, F/F, Possibly Unrequited Love, Tequila, Unresolved Romantic Tension, Unresolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-05-24
Updated: 2015-06-22
Packaged: 2018-03-31 00:36:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 8,098
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3957853
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MuddlingAlong/pseuds/MuddlingAlong
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She is slightly uncomfortable here: she can’t remember the last time she has been in a bar like this, but Kalinda’s confidence is infectious and she is curious.</p><p>A rehash of some of the Kalinda/ Alicia bar scenes in an attempt at reaching some kind of closure.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Season 1 Episode 1 The Pilot

**Author's Note:**

> I am ever so new to this, though I have been reading other peoples' works for quite a while. So much of it is so so good, I am a little intimidated, and very nervous about publishing this, but I (apparently like every other person in the whole goddamn world) am so very disappointed with the Kalinda exit storyline and the lack of any kind of real Kalinda/ Alicia closure, and this is just a little contribution to fill a very large K/A void. I'm not even going to start on the whole mess that the Kings made with Kalicia because I'll just start ranting, but you all know what I'm talking about anyway.
> 
> I don't know how this is going to end, but these are just alternate (or, as I believe, more accurate) versions of some of the bar scenes between Alicia and Kalinda. Kalinda always loved Alicia, and though I'm not sure that Alicia loved Kalinda in the same way, I'm pretty damn sure that she thought about it. (That said, they would have made a frustratingly perfect couple and I shall forever curse the show for not letting it happen. Stop ranting, sorry.) This may just be a whole load of painful angst, but I am nervous about going completely off the actual material. Maybe one day.
> 
> Anyway, I hope you enjoy.

Alicia doesn’t yet know what she thinks of Kalinda. When she first met her, her overriding impression was that she was rude. So her husband had fired her. So she was older than her. So she identified with clients. Had she been trying to unsettle her, or was she just being honest? She sensed that the other woman thought she wasn’t up to much: she was just a housewife and she’d be gone in a month. Her instinctive defensiveness told her: so what? She has no time for people who didn’t like her anymore.

And yet there is that excitement, that thrill of exhilaration: _these are better than subpoenas_. She is so different to anyone she ever has met: the women she knew from Highland Park would never dare to show skin like that, or talk like that, or act like that. Kalinda is tough and brash and takes no prisoners. And it’s so new.

Now they sit in a bar, soft lighting and gentle music flowing over them. Kalinda has offered to buy her a drink, and- half suspicious, half eager- Alicia acquiesced. She is slightly uncomfortable here: she can’t remember the last time she has been in a bar like this, but Kalinda’s confidence is infectious and she is curious.

“You’re not just making this up?”

“It’s a Stern Lockhart tradition. First jury trial, a shot of tequila. Let’s go.” 

She’s apprehensive about shots- memories of too-loud college parties and heavy hangovers come to mind- but for some inexplicable reason she wants to impress Kalinda: show her she’s not just a housewife, and so she knocks it back. It tastes of burning and sour and thrill.

Grimacing, she leans against the bar as she swallows, lets the heat pass. As she opens her eyes, she realises Kalinda hasn’t drunk her own shot, but is grinning instead. 

“Yeah, I just made that up,” and Kalinda swallows the tequila. She looks so natural, barely even blinks. The laugh that follows is impish and gleeful, and Alicia can’t help but join in. She doesn’t remember the last time she let herself laugh this openly and freely, since- Peter, she has had to check every emotion before she lets it play on her face, afraid of giving too much away. This feels so refreshingly real. “Sounded good though didn’t it?”

And it did.

“How long do you think they’ll stay out?”

“Oh I stopped guessing about juries a while ago. How long were they out with your husband?”

Alicia is taken aback by the directness of the question. Kalinda met her just days previously, and yet apparently feels it appropriate to ask her personal questions. She answers anyway, tired of deflecting.

“Six hours.”

“Yeah? You know what I don’t get?” Kalinda appears to be irritatingly interested in her life. Why does everyone always want to know the details? “Why you stood by him. I would have stuck a knife in his heart.”

She is tempted to dismiss the question and move on, but something stops her. Maybe it’s the thrill of working again, or being out of the house, or the tequila, but she feels like herself for the first time in a long time: Alicia the woman, not Alicia the wife, or the mother, or the public scandal, and she doesn’t want to let it go. For some reason she can’t put her finger on, a part of her wants to trust this woman, a feeling of calm and safety that she has been lacking for months is suddenly present. And so she lets her mask slip the tiniest fraction, and answers.

“I always thought I would, too, when I heard about those other scandals, the other wives, I thought, _how can you allow yourselves to be used like that?_ ” Out of the corner of her eye she sees Kalinda’s face, which is softer and more sympathetic than she has seen yet. “And then it happened, and I was-” she pauses, searching for the right word, “unprepared.” She smiles softly, looking over at Kalinda, who is biting her lip, almost looking guilty for having pried so deep now that she has gotten such a straight answer. Alicia feels a foreign sense of calm- she isn’t being judged or ridiculed or pitied, she’s just talking to someone who seems to- accept her.

Alicia’s phone buzzes then, interrupting the moment, and she picks it up, feeling Kalinda’s gaze on her but not really minding. “Hello? Yes. Thanks.”

Kalinda seems to read her mind, “Jury’s in?”

“Yeah,” she replies, and pulls her coat on. She slips off the barstool and retrieves her phone, but realises that Kalinda is already leaving, so she has to jog slightly to catch up. As they draw level with each other, Kalinda enquires, “you feeling confident?”

“I don’t know-” she’s still trying not to fall behind: Kalinda may be a lot smaller, but she walks with purpose and determination that seem to carry her further than expected.

“Cause you should, you were good today.” Alicia snaps a look at Kalinda, thinking she’s being flattered or wound up, but the other woman’s face is deadpan: she really means it.  
A flush spreads over Alicia, her cheeks staining pink. She feels good for the first time in months.


	2. Season 1 Episode 22 Hybristophilia

“It’s a Lockhart Gardner tradition: now you’re an associate, two shots of tequila.”

Alicia grins, and Kalinda feels that little shiver that she has come to associate with Alicia’s attention. They both knock their drinks back with relative ease: it still makes Kalinda smile to think of how hesitant Alicia had been at her first shot. Now it’s like second nature.

The music is fast and easy, like her pulse. Kalinda feels more- human around her- like she can feel her heart thumping slippery and strong inside her chest, feel her lungs steadily expand and contract, feel her blood pump resolutely through every vein. Sometimes it scares her that she can feel so biological and mechanical, it makes her vulnerable, open. But there’s also a part of her that enjoys it- a feeling so new and thrilling it’s becoming addictive.

She looks over at Alicia, watches her check her phone for the thousandth time. She almost reads her mind, can see how conflicted she feels. Although Kalinda will never understand why Alicia always feels responsible for everything bad that happens, she has come to understand that it’s something she can’t change about her. It’s endearing: she carries the weight of the world on her shoulders without question. But this evening, she’s determined to make her forget it.

“I have to be home by eight.” Kalinda sighs internally.

“Let me see your phone.” Her face and tone are flirtatious: she’s not- flirting, but it’s the way she always interacts with Alicia in this relaxed sort of situation: like she knows her, and like she knows what’s best for her.

“No, Kalinda, really, I have to get home.”

“Alicia, I’m taking responsibility for your irresponsibility. Let me see your phone.” She holds out her hand for the phone the way she imagines a mother would to a disobedient child. Momentarily, she wonders what Alicia is like as a mother. Is she strict? Is she pushy? Does she tuck them into bed at night?

Alicia puts her phone into Kalinda’s outstretched palm almost experimentally, as if she is testing her to see what will happen. Kalinda can feel her start to relax, normally she’d never have handed it over. Maybe it’s the relief. Or the alcohol. Or-?

She dials, holds the phone up to her ear and looks at Alicia challengingly, raising her eyebrows. Alicia is looking ever so slightly disorientated: she’s finding it difficult to hold direct eye contact, and her usual straight backed posture has relaxed into almost a slouch. It’s always such a luxury to see her lose herself slightly. The put together lawyer is attractive in her own right: the eloquence and the poise, learned parts of her office character, but it’s the woman at the bar that always sets Kalinda’s heart racing. She likes watching Alicia’s hard edges blur: likes hearing her voice thicken, her laugh widen and her cheeks flush.

Someone on the other end of the line picks up the phone, and she hears a voice, “hello?”

“Hi, who am I speaking to? Zach,” and she sees Alicia make a face, wonders why. “This is Kalinda, I’m just letting you know that your mom is going to be home late today, is that alright?”

On the other end, Zach replies, “sure, one second,” and she hears him talk to his father. For a second, the image of Alicia’s little nuclear family back home makes her feel ill. A husband, a daughter, a son: it’s so- traditional, so domestic. Something Kalinda cannot understand. Bringing her back to herself, she hears Zach’s voice, “Yeah, that’s fine,” so she hangs up and puts the phone on the bar.

She turns to face Alicia, who is gazing off into the distance now, her expression hard to interpret, though Kalinda knows exactly what’s going through her mind. As if she is feeling them herself, Kalinda skips through Alicia’s emotions. Pride that she is finally an associate; shame at having to resort to Peter’s connections to get herself hired; relief that she doesn’t have to go back onto the job market or become a stay at home mom again; guilt at Cary’s having to leave the firm, they all play equal parts in the battle going on in her mind. Kalinda smiles wanly, simultaneously irritated and charmed by Alicia’s inability to have confidence in herself.

She watches her face as she has done in secret so many times before, and lets her mind wander. _How would it feel if her hand were at the crook of her neck, fingers intertwined in Alicia’s hair, thumb nudged just behind the ear? How would it feel to be close enough to drink in her smell, feel her breath on her nose, and see every colour of her eyes? How would it feel for their lips to touch, to taste-?_

_No._ She knows, knows oh so well how inappropriate it is to feel like this, but she can’t help herself. Dragging herself painfully from the idea of how Alicia would sound if she were pressed up against her ear, she realises that the other woman still hasn’t noticed she’d being watched, so lost in her own thoughts.

“Alicia, you’re not responsible for everything bad in the world.”

Alicia turns and looks Kalinda squarely in the eye, “I know. But I can’t help but feel-”

“Don’t. You deserve this. Cary will find something else, he’s smart. You are a brilliant lawyer. That’s why you got the job.” She smiles at Alicia softly, almost tenderly, and is   
rewarded with a laugh.

“I think that’s the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me.”

Now Kalinda laughs, “Yeah? Well don’t get used to it.”

They both smile, relaxed, basking in the music and the atmosphere and the alcohol. The bartender brings over more drinks and they sip slowly, settling into a comfortable silence. Kalinda lets thoughts wash over her without trying to guide the trail. She isn’t sure when she started feeling less than completely in control around her friend, but she finds it hard to remember a time when seeing her didn’t make her heart beat twice as fast. When Alicia says her name, it’s like being hit in the chest. On catching her eye she feels the rest of the world stand still. And when she touches her- even the most innocent of touches- it’s like being a teenager again. That swooping inevitability. But she has to stop herself every time. The last time she felt like this ended in flames.

“Are you gay?”

She freezes. If she wants to reply, she can’t. Her mouth is all tongue and teeth. Why, why, why did she have to ask that? No really, _why did she ask that?_ Her heart leaps _she wants me Alicia wants me this could be the beginning please this could be it_ but her never-silent sense of reality chimes in _no no she just wants to know, she’s not interested for herself she just wants to know_ and then the self-disgust deafens _she doesn’t want you how could she want you don’t be so fucking_ stupid. 

The walls so much more than leather and zips, the walls she prizes on keeping so solid and real and impenetrable, the walls she dreads letting go for fear of someone glimpsing the fear behind, her armour, her protection, her defences that she had let slip ever so slightly, shoot back up. Double locked. She has let herself be taken in with the situation, has let the alcohol run her brain for a minute, but it can’t happen again. She’s let the most personal question she has been asked in seven years be asked, and she’s panicking.

On seeing Kalinda’s blank expression, but missing the rapidity with which her chest is rising and falling and the sheer panic in her eyes, Alicia rolls her eyes. “Oh, come on. We are talking about every single little detail of my life, it’s a simple question.”

“I’m… I’m private.” What else can she say? She’s never even really thought of a word- of a label. _Bisexual_ comes closest, but that just sounds- clinical, restrictive. There is this obsession with having a word to sum a person’s sexuality up into a nice neat package that Kalinda just loathes. She is not the nice neat package that people would like her to be, and neither is her sexuality. She has never questioned the fact that she likes women and men. It’s always just been- there. It’s other people who have the problem, this insatiable appetite for labels, details. She knows Alicia’s not trying to insult her, she’s just innocently interested, but Kalinda just- doesn’t want to share. Her face remains still and unreadable, swan like.

“Come ooon.”

“What does it matter?”

“It doesn’t,”

“Then, why do you wanna know?” Praying to whatever god she doesn’t believe in that Alicia can’t hear the tremor in her voice.

Apparently she can’t, or she’d be looking a lot more concerned. Instead, she leans close, too close, and slurs slightly, her hands talking for her, “because I do. And- how is this fair? I talk about everything.”

“I didn’t say it was. You like to talk about your life, I don’t like to talk about mine.”

Alicia’s phone rings. Kalinda breathes again. “What?”

“Nothing. It’s work.” And Alicia slips off of her stool awkwardly, weaves an unsteady way through the bar and then all Kalinda can see is the crowd that has swallowed her up.

She can understand Alicia’s annoyance, her frustration. She knows it can’t be easy to be the only one giving information up in this friendship, but she also knows that Alicia respects, if she doesn’t understand, Kalinda’s need for privacy. They are all each other has, and- in some weird way the universe can’t really cope with- they’ve become dependent on each other.

Maybe there will come a time when she feels safe enough with another person that she can let go and let her secrets spill. But even this- _only lust only lust, not love, no, never love, never love, never love_ this- thing she has for Alicia isn’t big or strong enough to hold her just yet. Sometimes all she wants, all she dreams of is someone she can let herself open up to- someone she can cry in front of, so she’s not quite so achingly lonely. And sometimes she wakes from those dreams sweating and screaming and silent.

For now, she orders another shot and waits for her heart to slow down.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm afraid I have skipped over a couple of parts of this scene, mostly because I was having real difficulties writing it: it was very long and getting clumsy, especially in the bit where Kalinda encourages Alicia towards Will.
> 
> I know that this paints a pretty gloomy picture of Kalinda, but there are so many different angles to choose on her, depending on how you interpret her behaviour and what her past was like- I think that's one of the reasons she's such an interesting character. She has built up this armour to protect herself from getting hurt again, but it makes it very difficult for her to open up to other people- it holds her back from having real meaningful relationships. That's my take on it anyway, feel free to disagree!  
> This chapter wasn't so good I know, but I have better plans for upcoming scenes...


	3. Season 2 Episode 17 Ham Sandwich

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delay in uploading, I've been ridiculously busy and stressed and all over the place. But I hope you enjoy it nonetheless.

Alicia drinks. Tastes familiarity, security, possibility in her mouth. She hasn’t felt relaxed like this in days, since Kalinda gave her that letter. _Why are you being so calm?_ But the longer she knows Kalinda, the more she realises that although she’s invariably calm on the surface, it’s not always calm below. Like when they were presented with that impossible choice: betrayal or imprisonment, there must have been some level of panic, some flutterings of fear. Anyway, it’s sorted now. Not that she really understands how the situation became- sorted.

“Look at you. Your daughter’s not going to be very happy with you.” It’s as if Kalinda can read her mind, recalling the same conversation. _You didn’t get your tubes tied._ She still feels guilty for laughing at that one. But there’s something relaxed about those evenings they spend in the office together, just work and beer, it’s like everything outside is a little- off. A little distorted. Like it doesn’t really matter so much.

She feigns seriousness at Kalinda’s words, “no, she thinks I drink too much wine. This is tequila.” At Kalinda’s snort, she smiles. There’s something wonderful about hearing the other woman laugh- sometimes it requires such effort, and sometimes it’s so easy- she never knows whether she’ll be rewarded.

 _What are you thinking?_ Every now and then Alicia thinks she’s cracked it. Thinks she’s understood what goes on inside Kalinda’s head. And then other times she thinks that she’ll never get there- never know anything about her. Like this hearing. She still doesn’t really understand where it all came from- the half excuses about Blake weren’t enough of a proper explanation to satisfy her, _he’s not a very good person_ \- there was something unfathomable between the two investigators, like they acted on a different plane of existence. That confused and scared the shit out of her. And then when on the stand, Kalinda should have been worried and vulnerable- and she had been… Until she hadn’t. Somehow, though the smallest and the most invisible in the room, she always seemed to have the most power. How had she done it?

“Cary was in on it, wasn’t he? He knew what to ask you.”

Kalinda dismisses this like she dismisses so many questions Alicia asks, with a cool smile and a noncommittal shake of the head, “Cary’s a great guy.”

She wonders about the two of them. She has long suspected that Cary holds a torch for Kalinda, some kind of schoolboy crush that won’t go away, but she never thought for a second that Kalinda would return those feelings, even to the smallest extent. She lets the alcohol rule her tongue and teases her, something she would normally do with a lot more caution. “Ohh, listen to you.” She grins flirtatiously and her voice takes on a sing-song tone, “you and Cary sitting in a tree,”

Kalinda’s expression is a mixture of mild irritation and amusement, and her response, as ever, is as secretive and mysterious as she should have expected. “Hey, I’m just shoring up friends.”

She pauses, lowering her drink, confused. Why does Kalinda never have a normal response for any goddamn question ever? “For what?”

“For the end days.”

“Hm.” _What end days? Are you “shoring up” me?_ She tries not to think about what Kalinda’s “end days” would be like. She seems to be in the middle of a tangled web of people she knows: people she owes a favour to, people from whom she is owed a favour- what kinds of favours Alicia doesn’t want to know. Kalinda’s end days are bound to be dark and dangerous and far beyond anything Alicia can comprehend. Her own biggest concern right now is whether she should move.

Eager to move the conversation on to safer, and less confusing grounds, “I have to buy a big house.”

Sceptical as ever, “You have to?”

“For appearances, I don’t know.” Kalinda doesn’t say anything which annoys Alicia slightly: she always seems to be the one carrying the conversation. But- she’s right. She doesn’t have to. _I’m the one living this life, I can decide where I live._ Her old house was her home, she had been happy there. But a return to that life is completely unthinkable now- after Peter and prison and the affairs- after having tasted life outside the picket fence- after having met people like Kalinda. Her apartment is her independence, her freedom. She wants to stay there.

Why is it that Kalinda’s silence can sort her head out far better than half an hour of shit-talk with Eli? “I have to stop life from just happening, don’t I? I don’t want to buy a big house. I like my apartment.”

“Yeah, I like it too.” _When did you see my apartment?_ And then she remembers- the Carter Wright appeal. That had been a strange day- so much emotion. Thinking back on it now, it’s strange that the moment she’s most proud of in her law career so far happened in her bedroom on a Saturday, in her jeans and a sweater with a lump in her throat and sweat forming uncomfortably, instead of in some glossy office or a stern courtroom. And then there was Kalinda.

Since that day, she has often thought back to Kalinda being in her bedroom, though she’s not sure why. It had been strangely comfortable to have her there, in her room, her most private place, more comfortable that it had been to have Peter there. There are things she can tell her that she wouldn’t dream of telling another soul. And Kalinda had opened up to her- just a tiny bit- and it had meant more to her than she thought it would. And then, at the end, _you did good. You did, trust me._ Kalinda, so concerned, so loyal, so- proud. And then she had wondered what it would feel like, if they were just that bit closer, to lean in, and touch-

No. _It didn’t happen, it won’t happen, don’t be so ridiculous._ Why was she so fixated on that moment? It was nothing compared to the chemistry she has with Will: the passion, the desire, the history, or even how she felt about Peter, and yet- what if?

Reeling her mind back onto much safer territory, she changes the subject. “I used to have so many friends. Where are they now?”

“Now you’ve lost me.”

“Back then, my old life, the big house? I had all these-” she pauses, looking at Kalinda cautiously. “Mom friends.” She smiles at the ridiculousness of the memory, “all talking about our weight.” Looking back, it seems insane. That she could have been satisfied with conversations about diets and housekeepers and school-gate-gossip. Now, the sort of conversations she finds herself having are about Hail Mary passes and loopholes in contract law. She imagines broaching the topic of weight with Kalinda and has to bite down a laugh.

Kalinda snorts gently, “Yeah, I wish I knew you back then.”

The idea of Kalinda seeing her in her old life is abhorrent. It almost makes her feel ashamed. “No. I was- different. We would have hated each other.” She feels Kalinda looking at her, feels it like heat. “Life changes, doesn’t it?”

“Yeah, it does.” There’s such a depth to these words, and Alicia wonders what Kalinda’s thinking about.

“But we can change it back.” She feels empowered, sitting here with Kalinda. She can do anything. Take on Peter and Eli, the law, the press, herself. “We can do what we want.” 

Kalinda’s phone goes off then, and she snaps out of her moment of reverie. “Who’s that?”

“Blake.”

Alicia snorts with incredulity, “you’re kidding.”

“Nope. He wants to meet.” _Why are you so damn calm, Kalinda?_

“Well you’re not going to.” The look on Kalinda’s face- as if Alicia doesn’t know a single thing- terrifies her, and she tries to warn her, her name whispering over her lips, 

“Kalinda-”

And she smiles and shakes her head, and in that second Alicia doesn’t trust her at all. “Kalinda-” she says again, more urgently: _why is she so bloody-minded?_

“Alicia,” she mirrors, “it’s fine, I’m not going,” which only serves to worry Alicia further. 

She is just so impenetrable. _I’m amazed at how little I know about you._ Anything could be going inside that head- sometimes it’s an all-consuming task: guessing what Kalinda’s life was like before she “changed it”. What could possibly have been so awful that she left everything and started afresh? Who did she leave behind? The only thing she knows about Kalinda’s parents is that they are legal immigrants from East India. The idea of Kalinda as a child is more ridiculous than imagining anyone else as a child. The boots and the skirts and the make-up are built in. What about friends? She can’t imagine Kalinda ever having been Miss Popular of the Clique in high school, or having sleepovers or gossiping and giggling. Lovers? Men? Women? The ever-nagging question. Maybe she has her own children? _Don’t be ridiculous._ Sometimes she catches Kalinda looking faraway into the distance, and can glimpse a shadow behind her eyes, a shadow of something enormous, something incomprehensible. And she looks away every time.

Yet she worries about her- like the whole Blake fiasco. She could be getting herself into all kinds of trouble and Alicia can’t do anything to protect her, whilst Kalinda helps her out every time, without question or want of reward. She’s never had someone be so loyal to her before. Why does Kalinda bother to spend time with her? Why does she help her at every given opportunity? Why had she chosen her over Cary to support for the associate position? There are so many questions that she just can’t answer about her- so much she wants to know, and is scared to know. _It’s not in my nature to talk, Alicia. I’m not hiding anything._ She was just going to have to settle with that.  
“Kalinda,” she waits until she looks at her. They look at each other, Kalinda’s eyes darting between Alicia’s- she almost looks- frightened. “You are- careful, aren’t you? I mean, this whole Blake thing- that was pretty close to- well- prison.”

Kalinda nods slowly, never breaking their eye contact, and not saying anything. Her eyes are wide and glassy, and Alicia can see the shadows shift behind. There is something huge about Kalinda that she can’t quite grasp, something that’s making her eyes almost water with emotion. It’s like she’s trying to say something, but can’t. Again, she feels this- need? Desire? To lean forwards and just- but she stops herself. 

Out of the corner of her eye, she sees Kalinda breathe in very deeply, and then out again.

“I have to go.” Her voice is slightly lower than normal, caught. She stands up, pulling her scarf on, her coat.

“You’ll be alright?” Trying and failing to keep the panic out of her voice.

Kalinda smiles sadly, reaches out as if to put her hand on Alicia’s shoulder, but then withdraws and just speaks instead, “Alicia. You worry too much.”

Then she’s gone. And Alicia’s more confused than she was before.


	4. Season 3 Episode 22 The Dream Team

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OK. So now we enter the stages of the freeze-out. During which Kalicia is killed. BUT NOT WHILST WE STILL HAVE OUR WORDS AND OUR STORIES AND OUR IMAGINATION.
> 
> AN IDEA ONCE BORN NEVER DIES.
> 
> Today I feel emotional. Apologies.

_It’s not supposed to be like this._

The background noise echoes across the void between them. The heavy bass, the chatter, glasses clinking, footsteps, the odd shout of laughter, doors opening and closing: this wealth of sound can’t stretch far enough to close the gap. She’s aware that she’s aware of it. Aware that it’s not how it was- there never used to be any kind of space to fill. But alcohol can make the edges fuzzy until it seems whole. 

“Cary asked me.”

“I know, he’s on a call.”

Why does she need to justify herself? Her fingers are shaking as she calls for a drink. The silence is deafening, but she can’t bring herself to break it in fear of something worse taking its place. She didn’t anticipate this when she’d entered the bar, didn’t even consider Alicia’s presence here a possibility, which is odd in retrospect: normally she plans out Alicia’s day alongside her own, minimising chances of unexpected contact. She expected, almost hoped, to lose herself a little in a clumsy evening with Cary: the boy has been so gently persistent in wanting her and she has been so gently persistent in rejecting him, but lately she’s so raw and bare at the corners that she could do with a little kindness. She definitely did not expect to be offered a seat at a bar with her. The tiny gesture spoke a thousand words and promises that she’s not sure she can trust just yet. Her heart is thumping outside of her chest.

“So the IRA agreed to a compromise, on your tax case.”

“The IRA?” A ghost of something long ago, flittering close, but painfully far. Their smiles are real and reach deep down, but they don’t translate to anything aloud, and are tightened up again quickly.

“The IRS. You’ll have to pay a penalty, we can deal with all the specifics later, but you have some uncashed cheques in your file, you should take a look at those.”

“Thanks.”

When they catch each other’s eyes, she becomes fire, and the room becomes ice, and she has to keep looking away for fear of the other woman sensing the warmth. But Alicia’s eyes have haunted her for almost a year now, the green staring out of every face she has been close enough to touch, dragging her out from her sleep kicking and screaming and sobbing, and it’s hard to keep herself from not looking at them now they’re here.

She’s so tired of this. So tired of tiptoeing and cautiousness and eggshells. For a short, sweet while, Alicia was the one person around whom she could let herself just- be. She never gave anything away, but she didn’t have to fight so hard like she did with everyone else, and to have someone open up to her with no ulterior motive in mind, just pure simple friendship and trust, had touched Kalinda more than she ever thought anything would. When it had progressed to love, she doesn’t know. But there’s an ache so deep that cries far more than just friendship. For the first time Kalinda can remember, she actually wants to lose all control and inhibitions and just- pour herself out onto the table, to reach over and confess and smooth and- but she has made her own bounds too strong and there’s nothing she can do to untie herself now. Her leather protection is now her tomb, encasing, strangling, suffocating.

The tequila almost tastes unfamiliar, and it hurts on the way down. She hasn’t eaten since lunch, and she had two beers in the office before she came here: her tongue feels looser, her thoughts slippery.

_Everything has to be on the table. I can’t be the only one being forthcoming._

Sometimes at work she convinces herself there is something salvageable: a shared look, or an unnecessary thank you, each one gives her hope she knows she shouldn’t be building. It has been- defrosting. But it’s not enough. She knows it will never be enough. Because sitting at a bar together now, in their comfortable old habitat, the fact that they’re not laughing and leaning in makes them seem a million miles further away.

_Can you do that?_

Maybe. Maybe she can- undo a single knot. 

“I’m not gay.” The words tumbled over her lips and she hears herself saying them as if from far away. Alicia’s expression is confusion. _Fair enough._ “You asked, whether I was gay.”

“Yes. Two years ago.”

“I know. I wanted to answer. I’m not gay, I’m- flexible.” Since the question was first asked, she’s had time to find a word. A lot of time. She still doesn’t like it: it still feels like a barrier placed upon her from the outside rather than one she herself has constructed, but it’s something that can be understood. She hopes Alicia understands how she had to rip that word from her. A beer, a chair, a word- tiny little glimmers.

Her reaction is painfully predictable- the attempted unflappable exterior hiding very little to Kalinda’s eye, which is learned in the art of recognising Alicia’s facial expressions- so she orders a shot to give herself something to do. “Flexible. Good. And uh- Lana Delaney, this FBI agent, that’s- flexible?” 

Ah. Lana. In her mind’s eye she can see Lana, pressed up against the wall of her apartment, eyes screwed shut. She can feel her breath on her mouth, her taste on her tongue. Her pulse on her hand. _If that’s not flexible…_ “Yeah. Sort of.” She wonders what Alicia thinks of Lana, wonders whether she can see herself in her. It’s only partly the physicality, though Kalinda has tricked herself before now into believing that the dark curls of hair on her stomach aren’t those of an FBI agent. Lana’s spikier, whilst Alicia’s subtle and calm, but the two of them have this confident exterior that hides a vulnerable core. She’s spent a few nights with Lana Delaney, swapping blue eyes for green and the sharp, clipped cries for something slightly deeper and softer. _Stop it._ Thinking about that now is only making the slight layer of sweat building under the leather more uncomfortable.

“Because, as your lawyer, I wouldn’t-” She seems about to offer advice, show some interest maybe, and Kalinda’s breath quickens, “you know what, it’s your life, you do what you want.”

And Alicia knocks back her shot like Kalinda has seen her do countless times before, and the urge to feel those lips under her own almost deafens her. But Alicia’s phone goes off: another opportunity to doubt her abilities as a lawyer, and Kalinda sighs internally. She would take the phone from Alicia and force her to relax if that didn’t bring back memories too hot to hold.

Instead, she waits for her to put her phone down of her own accord and orders two more shots.

“Thank you.” Alicia’s words are quick and stumbling, like they’ve been forced out. On seeing Kalinda’s confused expression, she explains, “for being- forthcoming.”

Kalinda smiles sadly, “I’m not very good at this, Alicia.”

“I know.” There doesn’t seem to be any other words following, so Kalinda just nods gently. They both stare deep into the back of the bar, sipping slowly at their tequila, savouring. Alicia’s next words seem to float through the air towards her: “I wish we could start again.”

Kalinda looks sharply at Alicia: there’s a warmth in her voice that she’s not heard in a long time, a warmth she has craved. She is suddenly made of a year’s worth of tears and her reply of “me, too” is choked. She feels the other woman notice, feels her head turn towards her and eyes boring into her face. She turns her own gaze to meet Alicia’s, and tries to show her her sorrow and guilt, and also the things she doesn’t want Alicia to see but also needs her see: pain and desire and love and need and grief. Alicia’s eyes seem to be brimming now, though maybe it’s just the tears threatening to spill from her own. She seems to understand- something, and the look on her face is harder to bear than when she’d thrown her out of her office.

A tear escapes, white-hot. An internal battle is raging in her mind: her polished walls of self-preservation defending against something so raw and human, so hungrily powerful, yearning to escape. It seems to show on her face, because Alicia reaches out her right hand and gently touches it to Kalinda’s left cheek.

She freezes, stone still, not daring to shiver. A soft, padded thumb brushes away the tear. Her breath hitches. She hasn’t been touched with such sad tenderness in so long. Her face is so near- so full of concern, full of something so soft it almost scratches. How impossibly easy it would be to just lean over and kiss her, to explain everything in one simple movement.

“Kalinda-” Alicia seems equally unable to speak. _Why?_ Kalinda knows why her own throat is constricted and why her brain is spinning, but why can’t Alicia form words either? She hardly dares to hope. Her skin is twice as sensitive at the points where Alicia’s skin is touching hers: two fingers nestled at the corner of her jaw just below her ear, two fingers in the slight hollow of her cheek, and thumb still stroking underneath her eye. There’s a look on Alicia’s face that she recognises as her own. _Oh how it hurts so well._

A sudden shout of laughter from nearby snaps them out of their moment: Cary has just returned to the bar. Alicia removes her hand from Kalinda’s face: hurried, panicked, and turns to meet Cary who comes to stand between them.

“Cary, I have to go- the kids. It’s great to have you back,” and with a quick squeeze of his arm, she disappears into the crowd.

On being released from Alicia’s touch, she realises she hasn’t breathed properly in minutes, and gasps, air entering and leaving her lungs quicker than normal. Cary, with a smile fading, slips himself into Alicia’s seat and looks at her. She can’t look back at him.

“Kalinda, are you alright?” His concern is palpable and it makes her shudder back into her leather and the present. “Have you- have you been crying?”

“No, Cary.” He wants to know her, but he can’t. Maybe he can suspect, but he can never understand. 

Or- maybe he’s the only one who can. “I need to- I need to get some air.” She catches his eye then, holds his gaze, _you’ll come, too._

He follows her eagerly like a puppy dog.

 

Pushed against the wall. Shadows licking. She lets him hold her, press her against brick. He is sweet and young. She tastes his hunger like it’s her own. His desire is hers.  
But it’s oh so wrong. He is beer and stubble and cologne.

_No._

Stumbling slightly, she pulls away. Ducking, dodging, running. 

She ignores Cary’s concern as it floats along the street behind her. Walks like she hears nothing, sees nothing, feels nothing. But underneath every streetlamp her tears light up like scars.


	5. Season 4 Episode 6 The Art of War

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello hello, sorry for the slow update for anyone who's invested/ interested.
> 
> I am uploading this chapter today, but the last few won't be up for a while because I am going to live in Spain for a month and won't be able to finish writing or publish them until I get back home. I have started writing but I want them to be good before I upload them because I feel like all of my Kalicia feels are now kind of bound up in this and I neeeeed it to be hopeful at the end, but I'm not too sure how to... Anyway.
> 
> Sorry also to those people (everyone?) who hate Nick, I can't stand him either, but I think the relationship is interesting... So I wrote a little about it. And whether you hate him or not I kind of figure he's had an impact on Kalinda's pyschology. And I am constantly trying to figure out what Kalinda's backstory is- why is she the way she is, and I think he must have played even just a tiny part of that. I hope you enjoy anyway.

It’s a little like a safe haven, this. One of the things that kept Kalinda- well, Kalinda, was her privacy. Not letting anything slip. And never was her self-restraint and silence more necessary than when she was sitting in a bar with Alicia Florrick. Biting her tongue, holding back hands, words, thoughts, it was almost like second nature with her. So being here again, feeling the familiar rush and the walls closing up, it makes her feel more grounded.

Because lately, the Kalinda she has constructed: old parts carefully picked out from ashes, held together with newer learned elements, maintained and polished so carefully, is beginning to crack. And Leela has been seeping out of these cracks like smoke. Every time she closes up one hole by immersing herself in Kalinda’s world of lawyers and facts and charm, two more are knocked through. Every time she feels safe, he whispers in her ear _you belong to me_ and she can’t even run because the danger’s inside her head. But with Alicia, she’s Kalinda Kalinda Kalinda and Leela never had any hold here.

“Thanks for doing this.”

_No, thank_ you, “having a drink? Why not?” _No don’t answer that._ Since their last meeting in a bar, since Alicia held her gaze with such tenderness, since she had wiped away her tears with the burning touch of her hand, nothing has changed. Alicia maybe even seems more hostile. _No, that’s not true._ Since _F and E Construction_ , there has been very little that has penetrated through Kalinda’s fear and anger and self-disgust. But- they seem to be less absorbed in the past. Sometimes, their conversations even run to the personal. Only when necessary though.

“There’s a chance the winning bid could be invalidated.”

“My husband’s bid?”

“Streckler Automotive made a mistake. One of their partners used to be connected to the city.” 

“That makes sense.” Then the full realisation of what Alicia is saying hits her like a four by four, “so… he’ll win the bid?”

“Only if he knows about it.” Alicia’s tone is hard- harder than Kalinda is used to- and she has to look at her face to get the full meaning.

“How could he not know about it?”

“He asked us to check into Streckler Automotive’s pay offs. He did not ask us to check into their partners.” Kalinda can’t help but smile. Alicia seems to understand just a fraction. Her attempt at helping makes her feel- warm and validated. She can feel Alicia’s eyes burning into her skin. Can feel the confusion like she’s sending it telepathically. Can understand, is confused herself.

“Do you love him?

“No.” It’s not about love. Love is something clean and whole and sweeping. The- whatever she feels for Nick is none of those things. It is broken. It is so backwards. 

It had been love. The sort of cartwheeling teenage love that consumes your entire existence, the sort of love that hurts like hell when you’re not together, the sort of love that makes you feel like you’re falling and flying at exactly the same time. He had been the first to make her feel like she mattered. Little Leela in her first city, all big eyes and lonely with nothing to call her own except her brand new leather jacket and her ponytail, swept up by rough hands and musky kisses and such promises. She had felt so tall on his shoulders. Oh how naïve. She hadn’t seen his shadow until she was well and truly bound- heart and soul and mind. She wore that ring so proudly, until she realised what it meant. And that teenage love had cowered and warped and ripped and then burned. What it is now, she doesn’t know. Inevitability? But it is not love. Her love is all hers.

“Then?” _Why are you interested?_ Leela wants to scream and break through, and Kalinda wants Alicia to look at her like she is everything.

“I- have difficulty being away from him.” She doesn’t understand. She can’t understand. Alicia, innocent Alicia has never felt that deadly pull. Despite escaping with burnt heels, he is still something Kalinda can’t truly be free from. Though she’s not sure why. Why hadn’t she run at the first hint of him, packed up Kalinda and started again somewhere completely new? Why hasn’t she forced him to leave town by now, why is she still letting him walk in and out and over her? Why is she still here?

When she really thinks about it, she realises she knows all the answers to these questions. The problem is that accepting the answer would still mean having to accept that she is powerless, be it against an entirely different force. Powerless against love.

“Is he dangerous?” Alicia’s words are rushed and spilled, like she’s- _what is this? Scorn? Curiosity? Concern?_

She almost whispers, “Sometimes.” Heavy. But it’s not even about that. The control he exerts over her body is nothing to the control he has over her mind. Though really, she supposes, they’re kind of linked. It’s all the same poison.

“Shouldn’t you stay away then?” _Because it’s that fucking easy._

“Yeah.” She almost laughs, Alicia looks so lost. Alicia, who has never known hunger or fear bone-deep, who has only known family. And Kalinda, for whom family was entrapment, for whom danger was freedom, and for whom loneliness became safety. Sometimes she laughs at the thought of the two of them, how unlikely their friendship was. The idea of eighteen year-old Kalinda meeting eighteen year-old Alicia. 

“Are you safe, Kalinda?”

Safe? What is safe? It used to be his arms. Then it was silence. And then tequila. But now? “I don’t know,” she answers, truthfully.

Alicia blinks, unsure what to do with that. “How old were you? When you met him?”

“Sixteen.”

“And when you married him?”

“Nineteen.” She chances a glance at Alicia, can read her like she has an autocue running behind her eyes, _Grace is sixteen, what if-_ “Your kids will be alright, Alicia.” Smiling at Alicia’s supressed surprise at Kalinda addressing her internal monologue, she explains, “they have more- life experience, and they’re more sensible. Plus they have parents who would do anything for them. So they’ll be alright.”

“But- you- didn’t have parents who-” 

“No.” She looks away, and can feel Alicia’s eyes burning into the side of her face as she concentrates her focus on the cap of a bottle of Jack Daniels behind the bar, not really seeing it. She’s really not going back there tonight.

Alicia pauses, and Kalinda can feel that her curiosity is still not satiated. “Why- why did you marry him? I never- I never thought that you were the- I never pictured you as a wife.” She throws those last words away like she’s taken this whole conversation to gather the courage.

“I- I was a different person. I was naïve, and he-.” She stops talking, feeling her walls straining against herself.

Alicia senses that Kalinda is done sharing and returns her gaze to her wine glass which she has long since emptied.

“Sorry, I- there’s a lot that’s very- difficult to talk about. And I’ve never really been very good at talking.” Kalinda feels, not for the first time, frustrated with her own lack of coherency. She can talk a witness into testifying, a suspect into admission, almost anyone into bed, and yet she can’t form sentences that capture her own thoughts accurately.

“I know, it’s alright.” Her acceptance and reassurance do more to calm Kalinda than anything has for the past six weeks. She catches her eyes, and there is sadness and fear in both the green and the brown.

Alicia’s phone rings. Every time they are interrupted by that phone, Kalinda is reminded how Alicia has so many more important people in her life. She will always leave Kalinda with empty glasses for clients or Eli or Will or Peter or her kids. For Kalinda, Alicia is the one she would drop everything for. The one she does drop everything for.

“Grace? What’s wrong?” With that, Kalinda knows their evening is over. “Well, where’s Zach? Oh, ok, I’ll be there in ten minutes.” Alicia hangs up, and looks at Kalinda apologetically, “she’s locked herself out.”

Kalinda smiles, “ah. Kids.”

Alicia smiles back as she pulls her bag onto her shoulder, “should’ve had my tubes tied.” They both snort with laughter, though it burns with the memory. “Look, Kalinda, if- I know we’re not-” she sighs, unused to struggling over words, “with- your husband- if you ever- if you need anything, a chat, a place to stay, a lawyer, I-” she cuts herself off: she can see understanding in Kalinda’s eyes.

“Thank you.” She whispers, her words soft and low and full. Alicia smiles one last time, turns on her heel and leaves.

Kalinda wonders for the millionth time what Alicia thinks of her. She knows that the betrayal is something that cut Alicia to her core, and that it is a scar that maybe won’t ever heal. But she thinks back to her offers of help, the concern that flashes across her face now and then, her hand on her cheek: there has to be some- shred of care there to keep her coming back. She wants to pull at the thread, pull it until she sees what’s behind, and yet she’s scared there’ll be nothing.

Her own phone goes off then, and on seeing Nick’s name on the caller ID, lets it ring for a good twenty seconds before she picks it up. She could run, but it would be about as useful as running away from your own mind. And besides, what can she run towards? After a few spitting words with him, she feels sick and hangs up. Or rather, Leela feels sick and hangs up. With every word she feels a little less steady in her boots. Longing for Alicia to come back and to feel safe again, Kalinda orders two more shots.

Alicia is the complete antithesis of Nick. He is coal whilst she is pearls. He is violence and corruption and addiction whilst she is grace. His hold over her is twisted and tangled, and inescapable, whilst her hold is pure. The purest thing she has known. An anchor in a storm.

So why does she feel like she’s drowning?


End file.
